Words, words, words
A shrinking feast or a changing one?
As a lover of my luscious mother tongue, I am concerned and confused by our society's growing penchant for abbreviation. But, I am trying to adapt and understand like any good monkey. Admittedly, there are times when short code comes in handy, i.e., "yt"? standing in cryptically for "you there?" when in the IM (see?) environment. On the whole, the abbreviation syndrome or AS, feels rather like after a life of linguistic divinity in the form of an all-you-can eat buffet of attractive and healthy food that the salmon is being replaced by fish sticks, the grapes by raisins and the seed baguette by crackers as hard as house shingles. Without the caloric intake of linguistic bounty one is left light-headed, starving and dazed. What is happening?
During the quest to find more meaningful words, I came upon a short, humorous article in The Sun Magazine, titled "Fighting CIS" (creeping initial syndrome) by Sparrow. She too is concerned about our language becoming bankrupt of valuable consonants and vowels. Sparrow lays it on the line in the beginning of her mischevious little piece by saying, "In a growing trend, initials are replacing words." Are we witnessing the slow but decided death of our language or the birth of a new one?
Death or birth?
The answer is both. Seemingly, our language is a bit cluttered and encumbering for us as fast moving, super intelligent modern primates. Perhaps what is happening is the birth of a new language, one that is more suited to our forever changing society, and the death of the old one.
